With applications down 15 percent last year, now is the perfect time to apply to law school. The competition is still fiercely aggressive, so there’s still no time for slacking off. Here are the top five most important factors in determining your success as an applicant.

1) Pick a major you love. Yes, Mathematics, Philosophy, Economics and Physics majors score highest on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), but you shouldn’t pick a major you don’t love. If you’ve gone to school for four years without obsessing about your studies, then your lack of enthusiasm will show. It will show to those who write your letters of recommendation and to the admissions officers who read your statement of purpose. Your GPA will likely be lower than it would otherwise be. The only way for you to stand out is for you to truly enjoy what you’re reading outside of class.

2) Study for the LSAT – the right way. The LSAT is not like the SAT – it’s the most important factor in law school admissions, not just one among many. Given the variety of colleges and difficulties of majors, the LSAT offers the only standardized playing field for all applicants to test themselves with. Those who have scored in the top percentiles frequently cite studying for at least three months, taking at least 40 practice tests and stimulating the test day environment. And with only one attempt allowed in most cases, you’d better enter the testing room prepared.

3) Raise your GPA. It’s important to maintain a consistently high GPA throughout your college career for yourself and for your law schools. After all, they’d like to brag about high GPAs, too – it’s part of what raises their prestige. Unfortunately, students who took a while to adjust to college may forever be troubled by a low first-year GPA. However, admissions officers do appreciate recoveries from low overall averages. High GPAs are important because they measure an applicant’s success at doing one thing – being assigned various tasks and successfully completing those tasks. A high GPA shows that you can organize information presented to you, balance the rest of your life and produce high-quality essays and return practice sets with ease. Such a skill is undoubtedly useful not just in law school, but in the legal world as well.

4) Perfect the “soft factors.” “Soft factors” are any factors besides your GPA and LSAT score – leadership ability, work experience, diversity and the like. These factors, though by no means the determinants of your admission, may catch the eyes of an admissions officer and save your file from the garbage bin. Consider emphasizing your political activism, sports team captainship or dedication to a job, because anything you can do to stand out won’t hurt.

5) Take some time off. Applicants often doubt whether they should take time off. Consider doing so to gain work experience, take a legal studies internship, travel and think hard about what you’d like to do with your life. If you truly want to be a lawyer, then your time off is not wasted because school is always there. It’s great if you find yourself hiking the Appalachian and can’t wait to start writing applications – that’s how you know law school is for you. The opposite isn’t true, for if you graduate from the University of Virginia with several thousand dollars of debt and doubts in your mind, it might be too late, and you probably should have thought about your future beforehand.

If you complete these five tasks, then you’ll likely be prepared for a life of the law. With application submission rates down, now is the best time to crack down on the books, take some time off to pursue your passions and consider whether law is right for you in the first place. Make sure to consider, of course, the reasons why the number of applications is so low – law school debt is piling high, graduates from even the top schools are out of jobs and the law degree is no longer a job safety net. If you ultimately decide to take the risk, these five tips may pay off in the end.

Brandon Sides is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].